


Curatives

by Uakari



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, Smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-25
Updated: 2013-08-25
Packaged: 2017-12-24 15:23:33
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,816
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/941520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Uakari/pseuds/Uakari
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If pressed, Levi can identify the exact moment this nonsense began.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curatives

**Author's Note:**

> This started as a kink-meme fill, but then blossomed into something horrible and unwieldy. As it stands, it's probably a bit too long for PWP and too smutty for srsbsn character fic. Whoops. Still, I hope you enjoy.
> 
> Mega THANK YOUs to Bottan for being a goddess and checking things over for me. YOU ARE THE BEST <3
> 
> (The crack about "Levi Jr." was inspired by a LeviHan headcanons blog on Tumblr!)

“When did you do this?”

“Heh?” 

A cotton swab, still soaked with iodine and blotched with blood, slips from Hanji’s grip as Levi twists her knuckles around for a better look at the webbing between her middle and index fingers. It lingers for a moment against the skin of his nose before dropping gracelessly to his chest and trailing pinkish-blackish splotches across his white t-shirt. His nostrils flare with distaste, but for the moment he’s more interested in the craggy white keloid that traces up the inside of her middle finger, past the second knuckle, and winds its way around her nailbed. It’s a hackjob, to be sure, and looks for all the world as if she’s ripped the skin completely asunder and smashed it back together it without any consideration of comfort, aesthetics, or even basic anatomy.

“This,” he reiterates and traces a finger along the length of the scar, “It looks recent.”

Hanji leans in for a closer view ( _of her own goddamned fingers,_ Levi groans internally) and stares back at him incredulously. “With a kitchen knife when I was eight,” she says with a smirk, “It just never healed well.”

“Tche,” Levi scoffs, “Well, I’ve never seen it before.”

“Probably because you’ve never looked before.” She snatches the cotton ball back from where it’s fallen and presses it back against his forehead. It stings – she’s intent on squeezing every last drop of iodine out of the damned thing, apparently – and he hisses his displeasure directly at the ragged scar once again staring him in the face.

This is a ritual, or at least as close to one as they’ve ever let themselves come to establishing. Field doctors may labor under the best of intentions, but the sheer number of injuries they tend to leaves little time for finesse and even less for proper dressing. He’s already restitched and reset plenty of wounds in his day – might as well have it done properly. And as for Hanji – well, this gives her the opportunity to poke and pry at him and make him curse in ways he’d never let the rest of the squad see, so he supposes it’s mutually beneficial.

Which isn’t to say he doesn’t like it.

Most of the time, anyway. When she’s less… _enthusiastic._

“Are you saying I’m inattentive?” he growls when she’s let up the pressure a bit and he’s able to work actual words out around his bitten tongue. 

“No,” she chuckles, “Just that you usually do a better job of protecting your face.” She moves to press the swab back down, but he catches her wrist before she’s able. She snorts, “Or maybe you just have better things to look at than my fingers.”

He ignores this. “Get a clean one,” he insists, shoving her arm away.

“It’s soaked in iodine!” she laughs.

“It’s soaked in _blood,_ ” he says flatly.

“ _Your_ blood,” she reminds him, but she’s already tossing it over her shoulder (and onto the floor, where it will inevitably roll into a forgotten pile of laundry and collect cockroaches, but whatever, it’s _her_ quarters and she can be as disgusting as she likes) and reaching for a new one at the bedside table. The mattress shifts underneath him as she moves to straddle one of his legs and stares down at him with a wicked gleam in her eye. “Now stay still,” she upends the bottle of alcohol against a new swab of cotton and soaks it through till its dripping, “Because this is really going to hurt.” 

She isn’t kidding – in the next millisecond a fresh flash of pain is searing its way into his temple. It’s not enough to disinfect the cut with the goddamned stinging alcohol, she’s got to go pressing her fucking fingers into it as well. “Fuck—FUCKING—fuck fucker four-eyes WHY?”

“Calm down,” she slams the bottle back on the table and digs her newly freed fingers into his jaw, “It’s your own fault for getting dirt in it.”

“I didn’t-” 

“Do you want me to get Irwin to clean this out for you?” she asks, and he swears her grin is more feral than that of any titan.

“Fuck you,” he spits in a very small voice. He grits his teeth and tilts his head just enough that he doesn’t have to stare her in the eye. “Do whatever.”

“God, Levi, you really ought to have been a ballerina,” Hanji sighs, “Prima Donna really suits you.”

“That’s opera.”

“What’s opera?”

“Prima Don- you know, never mind,” he puffs out his cheeks, screws up his nose, and blows a heavy stream of air through puckered lips to distract himself from her prodding. “Are you _quite_ finished?” he asks – far more meekly than he intends – when she backs away to admire her handiwork.

“Yes, Corporal!” She smacks her fist into her chest and sends whatever excess alcohol still clinging to the cotton splashing against his face. “Sorry…”

“No you’re not,” he says and sits up as quickly as he’s able, before she manages to weasel away. He grabs her arm and leans in until they’re face to face, chest to chest. “Another sloppy salute like that will get your court martialed.” 

“Do you want me to bandage that for you?” she asks, completely ignoring him.

“No,” Levi says with absolute certainty. He still has painful memories of the last time she crowned him with tangled gauze and sent him on his merry way as if this were a perfectly normal thing to do. He tugs at her arm instead, “Let me see what you’ve done to your elbow.”

“I haven’t done anything to my elbow,” she says. He’d be surprised at the expression of genuine confusion spreading across her face, but they’ve played out this scene too many times already.

“Your arm then,” he says, and loosens his grip. He holds his hand up to her face, sticky and glistening with half-dried blood that’s seeped through her jacket. “Or is this not yours?”

“Huh.” She stares at his bloodied hand for a long moment before managing a sheepish grin. “I thought I fixed that last night – guess it reopened…”

“Probably when you flung me over your shoulder and carried me up here,” Levi rolls his eyes and tugs at her jacket sleeve. 

“Did I get you that high?”

“No, it was more like you pulled me along like a naughty child, but don’t let that soothe your guilty conscience.” He grimaces as she shrugs off her coat and a trail of brown, caked bandages trails behind, clinging with all its might to the sleeve. “This is why I don’t let you bandage me,” he sighs and tosses the jacket to the floor, “What a mess.”

* * *

“What a fucking mess this is,” Levi grumbles to himself as he picks his way through the pile of stinking discarded laundry and towels and grime-filled buckets in the locker room of the men’s bathhouse. It’s just after two am and the private, still green from boot camp, has just learned the true meaning of running this outpost on “discipline crew” only. The majority of the staff – who have not found themselves deep in the shit after suggesting their commanding officers might be more successful if they removed certain parts of their anatomy from their respective recta – have been given a weekend of leave following the return of the 76th squad from their disastrous venture into the abandoned lands inside Wall Maria. This leaves only a skeleton crew of discipline cases like himself and a few unlucky bastards whose numbers had come up to keep the base running until their return.

He had thought it might be better than peeling potatoes. He knows now how wrong he was.

The laundry is easiest moved by kicking the smaller piles across the floor into a bigger pile, which in turn would be easiest dealt with by incineration. Since he has been assured that this method of disposal is strictly forbidden (no matter how fatal a blow it deals to both microbes and stubborn sweat stains), he opts for shoving this larger pile into the canvas bag that have been thoughtfully provided for just this purpose and just as thoughtfully ignored. It’s too hot in here to light a fire, anyway – almost as if some idiot had left the fucking water boiler going-

_Bunch of fucking idiots._

He storms into the baths proper armed with a bucket of water and not the slightest clue what he’ll do if the damned thing has actually burned over or started a fire or whatever it is that boilers do when left unchecked for six hours. The boiler itself is tucked away in a closet at the far end of the building, where it’s sure to do the most damage before anyone can get to it. There’s probably a purpose for it, but he can’t imagine what that is as he sloshes across the tiled floodplains to reach the door. Someone’s left the water running as well – there’s more sloshing going on than on just his feet alone could manage-

“Oi,” he barks at the tangled mop of hair he spies hanging over the edge of the tub, “Can’t you fucking read? You were supposed to be out of here an hour ago.”

The person in the tub doesn’t even have the decency to shrug or wave him off.

“Oi!” he shouts again, “Are you dead, deaf, or stupid?” 

When there’s still no response, he storms the bath, fully intent now on emptying the bucket over this asshole’s head. He has the thing half-hefted over his head by the time he notices the book draped over their face, and fully poised to fall by the time he realizes that those are tits peeking out of the bathwater at him. Small tits sitting on a heavily muscled chest, but unmistakably tits. He rolls his eyes and snatches the book away, realizing now that he’s more than likely dealing with a drunk who can’t make out the writing on the doors, much less the contents of these pages. 

The face beneath the book appears to be sleeping peacefully (or is at least peacefully passed-out), but he’s not about to grant her any more rest here. He waits for her to exhale, then dumps the bucket unceremoniously over her head.

There’s a predictable amount of flailing and shouting, but he’s not prepared to end up on the wrong end of a towering death glare. He’s also not prepared to be on the wrong side of the 76th squadron’s Captain who, as far as he was aware, was not expected to be on the base, much less in the men’s bathhouse, but both of these realities have just come crashing down on him. He wonders how many extra shifts of picking through skid-marked underwear this is going to cost him.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” she spits at him.

 _“Me?”_ he’s already in the shit again, so why not press his luck a bit further? “The fuck are you doing in the men’s?”

She looks confused for a moment as her facial muscles attempt to catch up with her brain, then claps a hand over her eyes as realization appears to settle in. “Shit, I did it again, didn’t I?”

“A-again?” Levi stutters, “Is this a _common_ thing for you?” Maybe she wasn’t who he thought she was. That is a definite possibility, as the towering, glaring beast in front of him seems to be melting away into a fully-fledged mess. Maybe it’s the water matting down the hair she’s barely managed to tie back, or the crazed way her eyes dart from side to side without ever really focusing on any one thing…

This cannot possibly be Captain Zoe Hanji, who crawled back from beyond the wall with the three remaining members of her squad, stood down an official inquiry and declared the magistrate a cunt, only to be rewarded with her own fucking laboratory and a promotion. There is no way in hell.

“Um, well,” she says shiftily, “I got a bit involved in my notes and…oh shit, where did my notebook go?” She drops any pretense of modesty to look for the damned thing, leaving everything to hang out and tighten up in the breeze and-

He probably ought to knock that line of thought out before he waded deeper into disciplinary territory. She wasn’t all that much to look at anyway – all sinew and no curves-

“It’s right here,” he says, handing the book over and turning his head away before he finds himself analyzing just how much sinew she has to her. “You left it on your face.”

“Oh.” The book lifts from his hand. “I must have fallen asleep.”

He expects her to go now, to run for the locker room and finish up whatever she’s doing here so he can get back to cleaning this festering pit. Instead, there’s a long, drawn-out silence that remains unbroken until he chances a look back at her. Even then, it’s only broken by his scoff.

She’s reading the damned book again.

Water drips down every naked inch of her, her glasses are steamed over, and she is still standing there knee deep in bath water, reading the goddamned book like this was a reasonable way to behave.

“You need to go,” he says finally, when it’s apparent that she’s not going to move of her own accord. “The baths are closed and I have to have them sparkling by morning.”

“Hmm?” she doesn’t bother to look up from the page.

“Oi, shitty four-eyes!” he barks, hoping maybe that will catch her attention. It works, at least enough to get her to look up over the lip of the cover.

“Why is it,” she says with a stern look in her eyes, “That you can chop off their heads and they don’t stop moving?”

“What?”

“You can sever the connection between their brain and their spinal cord and they just keep running around. It’s like they’re chickens, but at least chickens stop eventually,” she snorts to herself, “They don’t grow new heads either, so I suppose that comparison is out.”

“What the hell are you even talking about?” Levi’s jaw falls slack and he takes a step backward. She’s crazy. She’s clearly fucking nuts.

“The titans, of course,” she murmurs and flips back through the pages, “You shouldn’t be able to sever the brain’s connection to the body in a vertebrate and not kill them. It’s like their brain isn’t actually in their heads.”

“Maybe it’s in their ass,” he grinds out.

“No, you can slice that off too, to no effect,” she says absently, “Besides, what’s the point of having a fully closed skull then…?”

“I couldn’t say.”

She stops what she’s doing then and stares at him very strangely. He’s about to demand to know what the fuck her problem is now when she deigns to open her mouth again. “I really should get dressed, huh?”

“I-” he cuts himself off as she snaps the book shut and steps out of the tub, still not an ounce of shame about her. She turns to walk back toward the locker room and that’s when he notices – for the first time – the enormous gash down her left hand side that winds onto her lower back. It’s red and raw and newly stitched, and now swollen and logged with water. It’s probably weeping too, but he’s not looking closely enough to tell for certain. His stomach churns. “Holy fucking balls-”

She shoots him a confused look over her shoulder and he snaps his mouth shut in embarrassment. “Are you alright?” she asks tentatively.

“Are _you?_ ” he balks.

“Wha- _oh_.” She smiles nervously and glances down her back. “Could have been worse. Could have been my right side and taken out my liver!” She frowns at his expression, which has melted from confused into disgusted. “It’s alright, you know. It missed my spleen _and_ my colic flexure, so you don’t need to give me that look.”

“I don’t think you’re supposed to soak your stitches,” he says dumbly.

She snorts at this. “Well as long as you’re not fainting at the sight of it.” She pauses and tilts her head thoughtfully. “You’ve not been out yet, have you? Past the wall?”

“No,” he admits and doubles his grip on the bucket.

“Better get used to things like this,” she says seriously, “It’s going to be an everyday occurrence for you in no time.”

“I know that,” he snaps irritably. It isn’t the wound itself that’s leaving him gaping. He’s seen plenty of blood and much worse in terms of bodily harm. It’s just…there is something about the way she’s carrying on as if this is no big thing while sporting a wound sizable enough to fell a horse that makes him realize she’s operating on a completely different level from himself. Years of knife fighting have nothing on whatever he’s gotten himself into here. He swallows thickly.

“Can you give me a hand?” Her voice is suddenly much brighter. He has to drag his eyes away from the floor where they’ve fixed themselves to believe her demeanor has switched just like that. It has though – she’s grinning widely at him again and motioning for him to come closer. “I could use a hand with the bandages. They’re hard to secure on myself.”

“Right” Levi says and walks toward her without thinking, “Yeah, I can do that, Captain.”

“You can save it,” she says, “I’m off duty.” She breathes out a sigh and heads for the doorway. “I forgot what I came in here to look up, anyway. Oh well. Oh!” she snaps her fingers and points at him over her shoulder, “Do a good job and I’ll let you in on few tips for taking down titans. Might keep you out of the ninety percent.”

He doesn’t have to ask to know what the ninety percent are, he simply nods and follows her to the lockers.

* * *

Five years later and his opinion of her hasn’t changed all that much. She’s still a fucking mess, still holds more in that blasted head of hers than he will ever be capable of, and she is still fucking useless with bandages. This last is thrown into sharp relief as he finally manages to unwind the mess around her arm and elbow to get a look at the gash she’s sporting there.

It’s not a terrible wound in the grand scheme of things – most of the damage is superficial and it’s only bleeding as much as it is because a large patch of skin has been scraped open. And it’s _clean_. He will give her that – he’s never seen a wound she’s treated end up infected, and that’s more than half the battle. Still, he tuts at how messy it is and reaches for the alcohol anyway.

“How the hell do you even do this?” he wonders out loud.

“Hook pulled out and I slid down a tree trunk,” she says matter of factly, “It was a pretty good save, I think. I managed to land right on top of Levi Jr.’s head and take him out so-”

“Who the fuck is Levi Jr.?” He nearly drops the bottle.

“The angry one!” she says, “You saw him – he was that three meter class I took out when-”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” he groans, “I can’t believe you fucking-”

“He looked like you,” she insists, “At least the scowl looked like you.”

“I suppose this is a compliment, coming from you,” Levi sneers and soaks a rag. He adjusts his hold on her arm and tightens his grip.

“Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it- OH FUCK LEVI _OOOOOOOOOOW!!!_ ”

He squeezes as much alcohol off of the rag and into the wound as he can. Serves her right for jamming her fingers into his forehead like she were looking for a prize. “Calm down,” he throws her words back at her, “It’s your own fault for doing a shitty job of bandaging it in the first place.”

“You’re a demon.”

“And you’re a shitstain.”

“Asshole.”

“Hemorrhoid.” 

“Ouch,” she says. He pulls the rag away and takes another look at the wound. Yeah – it’s definitely nothing to worry too much about. It just needs to be wiped up and rewrapped. A shame, really – for all he’s relieved that it’s nothing serious, he’ll miss the opportunity to torture her the way she does him. He tosses the rag away and reaches for a clean one to dab away some of the remaining blood.

“Is this all?” he asks. She hisses as his fingers trace over the open scratches, but nods. “Lucky bastard.”

“Hey that’s not fair,” she insists, “Last time I tore open my ankle, so this was your turn to get completely fucked up.”

“I don’t need to fuck myself up to prove something,” he counters, “Hold still.” He wraps the new bandages as tightly as he dares around a mobile joint and hopes that they’ll stay put long enough for scabs to form. It’s always a gamble with her – in another hour, she’ll probably have forgotten she’s injured and will be banging away in her lab as if she hadn’t just spent a week being smacked around in the wilderness.

“Right, because you’re a ballerina,” she grins.

“Shut up.” He cranks the last of the bandage tight and ties it securely into itself. He grins to himself as she grunts in protest and leans back to admire his handiwork. “Looks good.”

She’s frowning. “Kiss it,” she demands, and thrusts her elbow up under his nose.

He stares at her suspiciously for a long second before giving in. “Better?” he asks as he pulls away again.

“Kind of,” she says, “You were pretty awful. I don’t know if it will heal.”

“Pain in my ass…” he rolls his eyes.

“Pain in my elbow.”

“Raaah…” He half groans, half sighs, and fully caves. He drops the alcohol bottle to the floor and leans in closer, near enough for his breath to tickle against her lips as he speaks. “How about this?”

“Mmm,” she grins and closes the distance between them. Her arms sweep up behind his neck and pull him into an embrace that is far too tight for the arm he just wrapped.

“Watch yourself,” he attempts to say, but she’s not paying any attention. Before he argue any further, she has him pinned to the mattress and is working the buttons of his collar open. “Or…do that…” he manages.

* * *

If pressed, Levi can identify the exact moment this nonsense began.

It’s the dead middle of summer, and he’s been escaping innumerable grotesque endings by the skin of his teeth for three years running. Because it’s never enough to watch one squadron slaughtered before his eyes, he’s been redeployed only a week after his return. He’s tired, weaker than he would like to admit, and has reached a point where he would like nothing better than to dive face-first down a titan’s throat.

But he’s still fighting. He’s fighting even as the corpses of more than half of his squad lay mangled, stories beneath him, fighting even as another rookie is snatched midflight and swallowed whole. There’s no point in this, he knows full well – they’ve lost eighty percent of the troops they’ve sent out on this mission alone, and nearly fifty percent overall in their quest to retake Wall Maria – but if the only other option is death, then-

The blow lands on his left side, low enough to leave _some_ wind in his lungs, but still high enough to fracture ribs. He has enough wits about him to pull his hook back and aim for a higher anchor point, but he smacks into the side of a building before he can pull the trigger and tumbles crashing to the ground. His right half feels as though it’s been set on fire, even though he bore the brunt of the fall on his left; it’s not until he forces open his eyes again that he can see the shards of shutter (or window ledge, or what-the-fuck-ever window ornamentation he’d been idiot enough to slam into) embedded into the flesh of his thigh. His harness has been snapped around the backside of his knee and bright blossoms of blood are soaking into the white of his trousers. All this while a seven meter class is bearing down upon him-

He fires his grappling hook into its eye, which gives him enough time to shuffle back into a doorway while it wails and clutches at its face. He considers, briefly, trusting the security of the hook and hauling himself up toward the thing’s gnashing teeth to finish it off, but before he’s managed to talk himself into it, a war whoop that could come from only one person sounds from high above.

_How the hell is she still alive?_

Levi is not one for cursing fate, and especially not when its tides have turned in his favor. He watches with no small amount of awe as the seven meter class loses its footing and comes crashing down into the street before him. Hanji is following – by no means quietly – and it takes only a second for her blades to slash through the skin of the neck and send its nape flying.

He gasps for breath and the titans flesh hisses and steams. “Impressive,” he huffs out.

“No time!” she shouts, “Get up – let’s get the hell out of here before there are more of them.”

He staggers to his feet. “I thought you liked them.”

“I like fire too, but I don’t want to die in one,” she says with a look that tells him he had better drop the subject immediately. “How bad is your leg?”

“It’s fine,” he scoffs, and shoves his shoulder into the doorframe for better leverage in hauling himself off the floor. It’s not enough, though – even the tiniest movement of his leg is enough to send searing pain shooting through him – and it seems to take a small eternity for him to get himself into a position that even remotely resembles “upright.” 

“Yeah, you look totally fine,” she frowns at him, “How much gas do you have left?”

“Decent amount,” he grinds out, “It’s mostly been low rooftops around here.”

“Save it then,” she says, and drops down to one knee, “Get on.”

“What?”

“Just do it.”

He opens his mouth to argues, but closes it again just as quickly. There’s no point just now, and this really isn’t the place for it. The action seems to have died down for the moment, but as soon as the rest of the squad starts making noise again, they’re likely to attract more titans. He limps forward and steadies himself with an arm around her shoulders before throwing his good thigh up and over her propulsion unit and locking it around her waist. His other is just going to have to hang there, dead for the moment, until he can pluck out the shrapnel. “Where are we regrouping?” he wonders and she straightens herself out and takes aim at a roof across the street.

“We’re not,” she says quietly, and in the next instant they’re flying through the air toward their target. She fires her other hook before they land and jerks them hard enough to the left to knock any air he might have been saving to press her for further information out of his lungs. It’s fine, though; he doesn’t really need to ask.

This isn’t the first time he’ll return home with few enough squad members to be counted on one hand, but it is the first time it will happen after only a day’s travel from Wall Rose. It’s disgusting, disparaging, and his uselessness in travel right now only gives him time to dwell on it.

“There’s one of the horses up ahead,” Hanji shouts over her shoulder as she finally steps foot onto the ground again. She jams her thumb and index fingers into her mouth to whistle it near. It’s spooked, but not so badly that it bolts. Within a minute, she’s convinced it to come close enough to take hold of the lead. “We should be able to camp out in one of these houses for the night. It’ll probably be easier to head back in the morning – it’s got to be close to five already and we won’t make it before sundown.” She hikes him higher up her back, just as he’s contemplating sliding down. “And I don’t suppose you’re in any condition to try and walk it.”

He scoffs in reply. What’s the point in hiding it? “How close are we to the edge of the village?” he asks instead.

“Not quite on the edge, but I figured we would probably attract less attention this way.”

“Good thought,” he nods, “We should find someplace with a basement. Or at least a cellar.”

“Why, you need a drink?” she grins over her shoulder at him, “Any wine we find is mine. I’ll fight you for it.”

“Kick a man when he’s down?”

“You don’t look too far down to me,” she insists, “In fact, this is the first time you’ve been taller tha-”

“Finish that thought and I will snap your neck.”

“Then you’ll get to limp home all alone.”

“Every victory comes with a price.”

“Yeah,” she says, and suddenly her voice sounds has a dour edge to it ( _fuck_ – they’d been doing such a masterful job of not thinking about _that_ and keeping _them_ well out of mind and he had go stuff his fucking foot in his mouth), “I suppose you’re right.”

“I’m not good at being funny,” he sighs.

“It probably wouldn’t kill us to be serious for a few minutes, anyway,” Hanji says. She stops in her tracks to survey the surrounding buildings. “See anything here that suits your fancy?”

“That one over there has cellar doors,” he points to a house a few doors down from where they stand, “Let’s try there first.”

“Righto,” Hanji chirps, and plods down the alleyway, leading the horse along behind them. The back entrance to the home has been left wide open, but other than that, everything looks much as it probably did three years ago – the last time there was any sign of human life for miles. Levi isn’t sure whether this area was evacuated or attacked (there’s relatively little structural damage, which leads him to believe it was evacuated, but the titans they’d stumbled into had been lurking close to the borders, as if they were still waiting for stragglers to emerge all these years later), but the desolation never ceases to creep him out. These areas are like dollhouses – dressed up to give the impression of life, but devoid of any sort of humanity. Still, he’s grateful for the remaining furniture once they get inside, even if the sofa does puff out a cloud of dust big enough to choke a horse the moment she sets him down on it.

Apart from ensuring that soldiers keep their uniforms impeccably clean, the secondary purpose of the bleached white trousers is to highlight any missed connections in the 3D maneuver harness and show any blood shed immediately. The right leg of his has been stripped of both these duties, and is now serving the single purpose of sticking to his skin in a big bloody mass. He rolls onto his side for a better view of the shrapnel in his thigh and ends up gurgling pathetically. There are so many, and the shards are so little, that he can’t imagine how he’s ever going to get them all out. He bites at his lip and grips one of the larger pieces.

“Don’t,” Hanji swats his hand away, “Your gross fingers are going to get it all infected.”

“My fingers are not gross-”

“Just stay here and don’t pick at it,” she says and stalks out of the room, “I’ll see what I can find to take care of it.”

He waits until he hears footsteps on the staircase before he starts plucking shards out again. It dawns on him moments later, as he suddenly finds himself with a small fistful of splinters, that he probably should have thought a little harder about where he was going to hide the evidence. He stuffs them under the cushions as best he can as he hears footsteps approaching once again.

“You’re lucky no one lives here to see that,” Hanji admonishes him almost immediately upon turning the corner.

“Oh come on,” he groans, “Just wash it out. What did you find?”

She drops a pile of sheets next to the couch and waggles a bottle of brown liquid in his face. “Grandpa’s secret stash from the look of it.” She passes him the bottle, “Take yourself a long drink – I’m gonna go check out back to see if there’s a well.”

He stares at the bottle for a long moment before deciding that she’s right and pulling out the cork. It’s hard and crumbles to pieces in his hand, but long term storage is no longer a necessity. He takes a pull and promptly gags. If this is grandpa’s secret stash, then grandpa’s taste buds have been dead for the past quarter century and this is probably the cause. He swallows, pushing the bitter whiskey down as far as it will go, and immediately takes another drink.

“How’s it taste?”

“Like goat shit.”

“You have a complex palette, Levi.” She sets a bucket down next to the sofa and settles down on the floor. “How do you differentiate that from bat shit?”

“Texture,” he assures her, “What the hell are you doing?”

“What does it look like?” she grins and proceeds to shred the sheets she’s carried downstairs with quick flicks of her wrist.

“It looks like you’re destroying the evidence of a one night stand.”

“It’s good you still have that wit about you,” she says, “Means it can’t hurt that bad. Still, though, you’re probably going to want this.” 

He stares at the wadded up bit of sheet she’s pushing at him and wonders if she’s hit her head on the trek from here to the well. “For what? Sentimental value?”

“To bite on.” She shoves it into his mouth and holds his jaw closed while he struggles. He gives up as she reaches to pinch his nostrils closed. “Better,” she says and takes the bottle from him. “I don’t know how clean this water is, so I think…” she trails off and bites her lip thoughtfully, “I think we’ll wash it first and then splash the alcohol on it to kill anything nasty off.”

He nods and mumbles an affirmative around the wad of linen in his mouth.

“Right,” she clicks her tongue, “Let’s get these out of here first.”

The next half hour is a strange mixture of searing pain and sweet relief that washes over him in waves that are far too short and definitely too shallow. His teeth grind against the linen – he’s glad for it now, but he’s also positive he’s going to bite right through the damned thing before she finishes with him. In the end, he spits it out and reaches for the bottle of booze again. The splinters clatter one by one against the floor planks and all the while she stares intently, unblinking, picking them one by one from his thigh.

“Alright, get them off,” she says at last and tugs at the knee of his trousers, “That’s all the wood.” She frowns at him as he peels the fabric away from his skin. “What a fucking mess.”

If splinter removal was bad, then cleaning is a lot what Levi imagines the ninth circle of hell to be like. It’s not enough to rinse away the blood and remaining bits of detritus, oh _no_ \- everything needs to be touched and scrubbed and battered with alcohol that feels far worse against the meat of his leg than it did going down his throat. He makes a note to kill her in her sleep, if he can manage to walk over to wherever she decides to put her head down.

By the time she’s done, the sun is barely balancing on the horizon.

“Some of those could really use a stitch or two, but this is going to have to hold you over until tomorrow,” she says, tying a final strip of linen in place, “I think it should be fine. Try seeing if you can stand on it.”

He takes the hand proffered him and hauls himself to his feet. Miraculously, he teeters for a moment, but stays upright. Minimal damage to the muscle, it would seem. He breathes a sigh of relief – this will greatly improve his odds of returning in one piece, assuming they steer clear of any titan interference. 

“Try bending your knee,” she directs. That hurts a hell of a lot more, but it’s probably expected. “Well,” she hums, “Just try to keep it steady for now.” She casts a long look out the window at the setting sun. “We should probably head to the cellar. I found some candles upstairs, let me go grab them and I’ll help you down.”

A few minutes and a good bit of limping, hopping, and cursing later and they’ve managed to herd themselves into the cellar. The doors are still hanging wide open, however, as they are quickly discovering that candles are useless without a means to light them. It’s growing darker by the minute, and the best either of them have managed is to bang a few sparks off of a rock.

“I suppose we should probably just shut them and bear it,” Hanji mumbles.

Levi lifts an eyebrow at her use of “bear” and is left wondering for a split second whether the quiet and dark of night leaves her grinding her teeth and clutching at the blankets as well. It’s not fear – not of anything tangible that might lurk in the shadows (he outgrew those fears long ago when the monsters weren’t real and still fit under his bed) – so much as it is the product of idle senses and an over-active brain that deems only the most gruesome, guilt-inducing scenes worthy to play on repeat when his eyes and ears are underworked. Sleep only makes things worse – instead of silent flashes of terror, there’s a full orchestrated sound track to the carnage and smells and tastes flood through him. He doesn’t need a reminder of the taste of his own blood, nor of the grotesque squelching noise men make as they’re ripped in half, and he’s sure as fuck doesn’t need to feel the spray of-

_That’s fucking enough of that._

Hanji isn’t waiting for his answer (or if she had been, she’s blessedly moving forward without further commentary). She’s already tugging at the heavy cellar doors, which swing shut with a whine and shower dust and soil down into their faces. Levi swipes the grit from his eyes and tries to make himself comfortable on the cold gravel floor.

“Did you see the fifteen meter class aberrant?” she chirps as soon as the darkness has settled. From anyone else, it might seem an innocuous enough question, but Levi has been working alongside her long enough to know that this is the beginning of an unforgivingly pitched and _very_ slippery slope. It’s also terrifically inappropriate, considering where they are and what they’re doing here, but that bothers him less than the thought of a sleepless night.

“The crawler?” he asks, deciding very quickly that any distraction is better than idle nothingness. “How could you even tell it was fifteen meters when it was scuttling around like that?”

“I’ve got a good eye,” she assures him. He can hear her arms flailing around excitedly in the darkness. “Once you know the basic proportions, it’s not difficult to estimate-”

“Even the super deformed ones?”

“ _Especially_ the super deformed ones,” her hands clap together, “Those are the easiest because the eye is attracted to misproportioned parts. This one wasn’t super deformed though, which makes it all the more interesting that it was able to crawl so efficiently and at that speed.”

“Oh?” Levi lies back on the ground and folds his arms over his eyes, “And why is that?”

“Well, humans aren’t exactly built for that sort of movement, you know. Our legs are too long and we’re balanced to stand on two legs. So when you drop down to all fours-”

“Ah, I get it. It would need a backwards knee - like horses?”

“A backwards...what?” She’s silent for a moment as she works through what he’s just said. It’s rare to get comments in edgewise when she’s in one of these moods, and he’s almost impressed that he’s managed to think of something she hasn’t. “I think,” she says at last, and the tone of her voice is all he needs to know that he’s about to get shut down and hard, “I think you’re talking about their ankles.” This is all she manages before descending into a fit of giggles.

“Don’t be an asshole,” he grinds out irritably.

“I’m sorry,” she laughs, “It’s not really even that funny, and you’re right of course - that type of configuration is much better suited to four-legged running. It’s just...I don’t know. I must be nervous tonight.”

“What is there to be nervous about?” Levi grumbles, “This is better shelter than we normally find.”

“Yeah,” she agrees. 

A heavy silence hangs over them. Levi wonders what he’s done to warrant the silent treatment, especially since only a minute ago he’d been steeling himself for a full-on lecture from the professor of titanology. “Oi,” he groans against his better judgement, “What’s wrong now?”

“Sorry,” she chuckles again, “Guess I got kind of lost in my own thoughts there.”

“What, for once you didn’t feel the need to broadcast them?”

“I figured you probably had your own things to focus on.”

“My own-” Levi scoffs, “What the hell is that even supposed to mean?”

“Well, I mean,” she says, “You’ve got to have something other than making mincemeat of titans to keep you going, don’t you? Help block it all out? Unless losing an entire squad today really doesn’t affect you-”

“Why the fuck wouldn’t it affect me?”

“I didn’t say it didn’t-”

“Oh fucking hell, I really don’t need to be hearing this from the woman who spends her days sniffing around a titan’s asshole, wondering out loud how it works to anyone who’ll listen.”

“They don’t have assholes,” she snaps, “But even without them they’re more pleasant than you.”

“They’re more pleasant-” Levi coughs as a chuckle catches in his throat, “How does having an asshole make one a pleasant person?”

“Gas build-up,” she says very seriously, “Makes everyone cranky, from babies to titans.”

“Is that my problem?” Levi wonders aloud.

“Possibly,” Hanji hums, “But if you drop ass in here, I’m tossing you outside for the titans.”

“I’ll piss through the gap in the doors.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, even your dick can’t be that small.”

“Hey-” He’s tempted to chuck a handful of dirt and gravel directly into the dark space where he estimates her face to be, but that’s probably only going to produce more noise. “Oh, shut up,” he says instead, “You’re going to bring them all down on top of us.” She howls louder in response. “It’s like a fucking titan mating call.”

“I think that would be more like MWAAAAAAARGHBRRRRRRRRR,” she splutters the last bit out between her lips and follows it up with a burp loud enough to shake the wood beams overhead.

“Terrifyingly accurate,” Levi mutters.

“Right?” she laughs, then yawns and stretches across the floor, “So what is it for you, then?”

“Are you still on this crap?”

“It’s not crap - I’m _interested_ ,” she says, and for a split second he’s tempted to believe her, “Is that really so hard to believe?”

“Being interested in people is a dangerous hobby,” he tells her, “Never ends well.”

“True,” she agrees, “But dangerous hobbies seem to right up our alleys.” She waits in the dark silence for a long moment before adding, “If you don’t want to say, just tell me as much and I’ll drop it.”

“And if I don’t, you’ll just keep picking at me?”

“I enjoy picking things apart.”

“Oh god, you want to pick me apart and play with my innards.”

“Only if you’ve got something interesting in there.”

“All of my interesting bits on the outside.”

“What, do you have three sets of nipples or something?”

“Yeah, come on over here, I’ll show you.”

“Too dark. Can’t see.”

“Your loss, then.” 

“Probably not.”

“Now that’s just plain unkind” Levi frowns. He’d go for a full-on pout, but it would only be lost to the darkness anyway. Instead he breathes out slowly, brushes some dust that’s accumulated on his cheeks, and chooses his next words carefully. “I suppose you want me to give you some bullshit noble cause here, like protecting the innocent or something like that but to be honest, I enlisted because slaughtering big, ugly titans for a living sounded like more fun than beating the piss out of some idiot who made a bet he couldn’t pay off for a pittance. And as it turns out,” he cracks his knuckles - loudly and obnoxiously - for effect, “It is.”

“Aren’t _you_ scary.”

“Oh, shut up.”

“No really, though,” she continues, “I’m not a council here, interviewing you for a promotion or something, Second Lieutenant. I was just trying to keep things from getting boring and you had to go and get snitty with me.”

“Fine, then,” he sighs, “Silence.”

“But you’re always silent,” she says disbelievingly, “This is the most I’ve heard you speak in months.”

“Silence,” Levi repeats, cursing himself because he knows at least half of what she’s said is true, “I’d like to be able to enjoy it again.”

“Oh,” she says, much more solemnly, “Understood.”

“No, I don’t think you do,” he says, finally understanding why she suddenly sounds like a petulant child, “Especially if you’re going to shut up now, of all times.”

“Didn’t you just tell me-”

“Yes, but it was more of a suggestion,” he hisses, “Besides, I bared my heart to you and you called me scary.”

“You are a bit scary, though.”

“Fuck off.”

“How’s your leg?”

“It’s fine,” he answers mostly truthfully. It stings like a bitch and he can feel it starting to seep through some of her wrappings, but there’s nothing to be done about that tonight.

“I’ll take another look at it in the morning,” she says quietly.

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s just get the horse and go.”

“I’d feel a lot better if you’d at least let me look at it-”

“You can poke at it all you want once we get back to the wall, as long as you _get us back there_ ,” he says definitively.

“I can do that.” She yawns heavily, then falls - somewhat tragically, he notes - silent.

He really is a ridiculous asshole sometimes.

A lot of the time.

“So,” he coughs to clear his throat, “Tell me more about that abnormal?”

The night passes by in haze of excited chirping and sentences mangled by the sheer amount of excitement forcing them across lips that can’t keep up with an over-stimulated brain. It’s far from silent, but strangely satisfying and definitely one of the better remedies he’s found for all the unpleasantness night has to offer. He must have fallen asleep at some point - they both must have - because there is an abrupt cut from chatter in the darkness to sunlight eeking its way between the cellar doors and directly into his eyeball. Hanji is snoring somewhere close to his feet.

She sticks to her word and has them on horseback and making for the edge of town before the birds have stopped chirping and with only minimal fussing over his leg. From there, the ride back to the wall is about as uneventful as the previous day had been hellish. The gate opens to take them back, and though Hanji offers to relieve the guard’s neck the duty of carrying his head for being slow on the rise, they’re through without much fuss and before he can thank her properly, she’s unloading him on a field doctor and hightailing the horse back to the stables.

That’s that, then. Another failed mission, and another poorly stitched wound.

He isn’t expecting to see her waiting outside his door when he returns, still limping for having ignored the field doctor and toting a stolen first aid kit under his arm. He rolls his eyes anyway. “Coming to pick at me again afterall?”

“I thought of a few more things about that abnormal I’d like to go over.”

* * *

_She’s_ abnormal. _He’s_ abnormal for continuing this when it’s more than apparent there’s no future, no happy ending. They ought to both partake in that time-honored military tradition of paying for a date _and_ a happy ending at the closest inn. Of course, there is no hooker in the world who is going to hassle him for the precise creases in his cravat or the comb in his back pocket, and he’s not sure there is a companionship pay grade high enough to listen to her carry on about the texture of titan blood between her fingers. Not for any meaningful amount of time, anyway. And so here they are: friends? lovers? nursemaids? idiots. All too eager to patch each other up and tear each other right back apart a moment later-

“That’s going to pull open,” Levi grumbles finally and grabs her elbow up and off his chest, where’s she’s dug it in for balance as she plucks at his buttons. With most of the pressure pinning him down gone, he pulls them both into a mostly-sitting position, with her still awkwardly clinging one handed to his button row and straddling his lap. “Are you really still this bad at buttons?”

“They’re on the opposite side of mine,” she says, like this is perfectly obvious.

Levi considers this for a moment. “That should make it easier.” He cocks an eyebrow and bats her hand away. He starts his own way down the row and counts four seconds until the last of his buttons pop through their eyelets, and that’s without even looking at them. He allows himself a little more leeway with hers and watches as they pop, one by one, through their holes. Five seconds. “Yeah, that was pretty easy,” he shakes his head.

“You have more incentive,” she pouts as he pushes the shirt from her shoulders and smoothes a hand across her belly and up to graze against a breast. He can’t really argue with her, he thinks as he drags the pad of his thumb across her nipple and shivers as it peaks under his touch. He can’t imagine the view is at all better from her vantage, marred as he knows it is by scars and bruises and lacking all the fun bits that perk up and _heave_ when he drags the fingernails of his free hand down her back. No, he really _can’t_ argue with her, but he’s going to anyway because she has a terrible habit of trying to shut him up with her tongue and it’s really quite nice.

“Did you want me to grow some tits?” he breathes in her ear, “Because I think if you can steal me a few more donuts at breakfast I might be able to-” 

Her teeth clamp down on the end of his nose.

“Is that necessary?”

She nods an affirmative, which - with his nose in a vice grip - has the unfortunate side effect of dragging his head along for the ride. She’s worked her hands to his shoulders and under the lapels of his shirt, though, which is helpful. In another moment, the fabric is sliding down his back and gathering at his elbows, and she’s snorting ugly laughter against the still-trapped ball of his nose. She releases him and places a small kiss against the bite marks. He considers a number of derogatory remarks he could toss at her, but the damned _stupid_ grin she’s wearing hits him like it always does, and suddenly the slow coil of lust that’s been building in his abdomen twists into something much sharper and heads for his nether regions.

She, of course, knows this - he’s probably wearing a face just as _stupid_ as hers to give him away - and smirks triumphantly, letting her lips hover millimeters away from his own. He snaps his jaw upward to close the distance. She sucks greedily at his lower lip and wraps her arms tightly around his neck; his hands grind against her hips, pulling her back and down and just _so_. It’s an uncomplicated dance with an increasingly erratic rhythm: she pushes, he pulls, and somewhere along the way the remainder of their clothes are shrugged and kicked away between fevered kisses.

He has to forcibly pull his face away before she deprives him of air (he’s never worked out how she manages without for as long as she does), and forcibly lean even further back before she attempts to swallow him whole once again. He shoves her back into the mattress, neatly avoiding the foot of the bed, and holds her there with the palm of his hand against her forehead as he reassembles the thoughts racing like bandits through his head.

“What are we doing here?” he pants, knowing full well that they’ve been over this enough for her to take his meaning.

“Everything,” she insists, and latches on to his clavicle.

“I don’t know what that means,” he grinds out, even as every organ beneath his waist is screaming to the contrary, “ _Specifics._ ”

“I am on day twenty-three of-”

His palm slides from her forehead to cover her mouth. “Not that specific,” he rolls his eyes. It’s good to know though, since...well, since she’ll probably rip his throat out if she suddenly finds herself stuck behind a desk for nine months. Or at least demand that he deliver disturbingly detailed accounts of any and all titans he so much as lays eyes on, complete with inartful reenactments of the abnormals’ abilities and - if the last time she was too injured to go on an expedition was any sort of indication - approximations of their vocalizations. He doesn’t think his voice box can withstand that kind of demand.

She bites at his palm and snakes a leg up to kick him squarely in the ass. “Mwkawandarsinmwpnts,” she insists, “Fwannahee.”

He pulls his hand away and cocks an eyebrow at her, even though he’s less that sure he really wants to hear what she’s saying.

“I said my calendar is in my pants, if you want to see,” she grins at him. The leg she’s snuck around his backside loops up and onto the small of his back, nudging him ever closer. “Or you could just trust me.”

“That’s a pretty bold accusation,” Levi snorts.

“What is?” 

“That I don’t trust you after you’ve dragged me out of god knows how many-” he stops and sighs as he realizes she’s laughing at him again, “Oh shut up.” He pulls his elbow out from under himself and flops down onto the mattress, half on top of her and half nestled into her side. It’s been a long standing joke that the only way to shut her up is with a ball-gag, but since he’s lacking that, he takes her lead and uses _his_ tongue instead. Thankfully, she seems to agree that this is a much better use of her mouth as well and stops laughing long enough to kiss him.

His palm drags down the skin of her belly, letting the pad of his thumb catch and bounce against the many scars that litter her skin. He traces over the light bruises where her harness digs in - they’ve long since stopped blossoming into dark, painful reminders of combat, and now almost look like a natural part of the landscape - and follows them down to the junction of her thighs. She’s heavily invested in dominating this kiss, biting at his lower lip and twining her fingers into his hair, so the gasp she sucks in as he slips a finger between her legs and presses firmly against her clit.

She’s soaking wet already and aroused enough that he can feel her pulse through his fingertip. He smirks against her lips, though in truth he’s relieved that he isn’t the only one entertaining lecherous thoughts well before the first person makes a move. He slides his hand backward, letting his thumb teasing, until his index finger slips snugly within her. It’s hot and tight and the ragged walls clench and pull him deeper - his erection throbs and aches in retribution for taunting it like this. He ignores it and rubs and rolls, pinches and presses. She tilts her head back into the pillow, breath catching and scraping against the back of her throat, and lets only the most silent of rasps break across her lips. Typical - the one time he would revel in hearing her voice and she keeps it entirely to herself. He thrusts his fingers a little harder, coordinates his thumb a little more exactly, and a low moan gurgles past her defenses. He fall wider and he moves closer, nipping at the skin of her neck as it arches from the pillow and she moves against him.

He might be mad, or at the very least a glutton for punishment, for getting off on making the one woman most of the corps would most like to shut up make more noise than usual. But if that’s the case, he’s perfectly happy with, as every great honking, bellowing, embarrassing noise that come out of her rips through him like electricity and prods him on. He moves faster, pouring the strength of his entire arm into it as she writhes and howls. A thin sheen of sweat trickles from the underside of her jaw and across his nose and delivers the sharp tang of salt the skin of her throat. He laps it greedily and shares it back to her lips. 

Time passes too quickly, in that dazed, whirling way it has that leaves one gasping for breath and reeling the from the thrumming of blood in the ears. Before he really feels he’s put his all into it, he can feel her tensing around his fingers, sucking them in and closing around with a vicelike grip. Her back arches and leg wraps over his hip, pinning him into place just as he needs the extra leverage to finish the job. “Oi-” he attempts to say, but her fingers are tangled into the roots of his hair and _yanking_ closer so that she can devour his lips again. His loss of freedom and movement is fine, however, and she pulls taught in the next seconds as orgasm takes her. He can feel it in every touch - from the trembling of her thighs to the tight clench of her walls, and even in the sharp exhalation that peels from her lips ricochets against his palate. His fingers still and he pulls away slightly, just enough to get a better look at her face. 

Her eyes are glazed and dreamy, and she quickly moves to wipe away some lingering spittle from the corner of her mouth. Perhaps not complete ravishment, but good enough for the moment.

“It was blue,” she says, half sighing and half laughing.

“Pretty wide category,” he sighs, wondering if there is any occasion that doesn’t bring out some for of weirdness in her. He can’t remember when she first decided to start sharing the color of her orgasms, but it’s been a running commentary for quite some time.

“All the blues,” she insists, “And maybe a little purple.”

“Purple?” Levi balks, settling into mattress next to her, “That’s a new one. Good or bad?”

“Green is the only bad one,” she says very seriously, “But only because it feels like _more_.”

“Blue doesn’t feel like more, huh?”

“You can’t make green without blue, dumbass.”

“You can’t call me ‘dumbass’ when you’re still orgasm-stupid, dumbass.”

She ignores this. “Come on.” She pokes a finger into his stomach.

“Dumbass.”

“ _More._ ” She lifts a leg up and over the top of him and waggles her hips in what is possibly the least sexy humping maneuver he’s seen since his school days. 

“What should I do with that?” he groans, but hauls himself onto his knees anyway. She reaches for his cock and gives it a long, loving stroke before abandoning it completely to toss her legs up over his shoulders and knock her knees against the sides of his face. “Is that an order?”

“Polite request,” she grins, and scoots her hips closer.

It’s difficult to turn down an invitation like that, and Levi doesn’t even bother considering it. He hefts her buttocks onto his knees and plunges into her with an almost reckless abandon. Her legs catch around the back of his neck and pull him closer as he thrusts into her. He’s face to face with her breasts bobbling in time with their movements, close enough to hear the ragged breaths she draws in with every heaving of her chest. If he had been eager to drag noises from her earlier, he is certainly reaping his rewards now with every guttural cry that tumbles from mouth. He’s not in much better shape, though - his breath hisses out between clenched teeth, pounded out of him as her heels smack against his back. He breaks into a more frenzied rhythm, pounding into her with the sort of fervency he usually saves for dealing death. 

The room feels ten degrees hotter as she clenches around him, pulling him deeper still, but there, at the small of his back, he can feel the cold tingle that usually precedes climax. It spreads through his gut and sweeps into his groin. He feels himself seizing, and thinks, momentarily, how mind-blowingly fantastic it would be to come inside this warm heat, to let her draw the last of it from him and collapse, well-spent onto her chest and-

And then he has the misfortune of remembering his earlier thoughts of acting out abnormal behaviors. While it’s not enough to kill his orgasm completely, it is enough to convince him to pull out quickly and spend himself over her belly.

Her hand wraps around him as he jerks and sputters - not quite as warm or as slick as her insides, but careful and firm all the same. Her legs slide down from his shoulders and he falls forward to lay across her, burying his face in her neck. 

“What color was it?”

“Only you see colors,” he grumbles against her skin.

“I bet it was orange.”

“Why orange?”

“Because that means between us, we’ve covered the entire spectrum.” She runs her fingers through his hair and flicks away the sweat gathering at his neckline. “That’s a good thing, by the way.”

“I wasn’t wondering.” He pulls the blanket up from beneath them to wipe her clean where he’s made a mess. She’ll yell at him for it later, but for now she’s content enough. Besides, she can just toss it into the rest of the piles she lets clutter up her floor and forget about it. No harm, no foul. He lets the blanket flop back over the edge of the bed and settles his head down against her chest. Her heart is thudding so loudly that he barely hears her ask if it’s time for the traditional post coital nap. 

_Of course it’s time for a fucking nap._

Her breaths are loud, even as her heart settles into a more normal rhythm, and the scratching of her fingers against his scalp rattles through his ears. It might be the first time all day that she’s stopped talking, but it is still far from silent. And perhaps that is exactly the thing that keeps dragging him back here, despite his protestations that he is better off alone and free of her titan-loving insanity. Silence is still terrifying, and maybe it always will be. But then again, maybe it doesn’t matter. She draws in a ragged breath and mumbles something to the pillows. Already asleep. Levi rolls his eyes and rubs his cheek against the skin of her breast. Things may never be quiet for him, but at least he’ll be able to sleep.


End file.
